Gillibrand's First Spot

Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand’s first TV ad goes on the air tomorrow. I’ve been given a sneak preview, and thus, so have you.

The ad, entitled “Family Picnic,” features lots of sunny, feel-good shots of Gillibrand outside on a sunny day – both with her family and with some constituents, who her campaign swears are real people and not actors. (They provided bios).

Gillibrand opens things up by saying: “I want to bring the values I learned growing up right here to Washington. Responsibility. Hard Work. Family.”

With this statement, she seems to be both simultaneously seeking to deflect GOP criticism that she is a rich NYC transplant and also subtly question the credibility of the man she wants to unseat, U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park.

The Sweeney camp was first up on the airwaves June 8.

Gillibrand also talks about the need to make sure prescription drugs are affiordable and available to “folks like Hugh and Anne Ferguson,” who live in Valatie, Columbia County. She says she’ll “take on big oil,” so “friends like Ernie Reis don’t have to spend so much to drive to work.”

Gillibrand’s campaign says Ernest “Ernie” Reese lives in Chatham, Columbia County, and teaches at a Greene County correctional facility, which is quite a commute.

Gillibrand ends the ad with a rather amorphous pledge to “stand up to the President, and say that we need a new direction in this country and in Iraq,” skirting that sticky should-we-get-out-right-now issue.

She does not saying anything about party affiliation, which I guess is de rigueur these days, and also makes sense since she’s a Democrat running in a district where Republicans have a roughly 80,000-voter enrollment edge.

The ad was made by the Glover Park Group, whose partner, Howard Wolfson, is a longtime adviser to U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and is also advising Gillibrand as well as the state Democratic Party.